McBride: ‘My days with Michelle Obama’

Now here's an unlikely pairing - the former Downing Street pitbull Damian McBride (pictured) and America's elegant First Lady, Michelle Obama. A little birdie tells The First Post that just days before his downfall after being caught sending emails proposing a smear campaign against senior Tories, McBride was boasting of how he was the one given the task of shepherding Mrs Obama around town during the G20 summit.

He clearly saw it as a great privilege, indeed quite a thrill, according to our source, who was at a book launch at the English Speaking Union in London on the evening of April 2 - the day the First Lady visited the girls' school in Islington - where 'McPoison', as he's known in Westminster circles, was regaling hangers-on. "What's odd, now that we all know what a misogynist he is, was that he appeared so pleased to have been her escort," The First Post's spy comments.

He makes a good point: as the political commentator Rachel Sylvester writes in today's Times, "there is a laddish and bullying atmosphere to the cabal of advisers and MPs surrounding [Gordon] Brown... It is not surprising that Mr McBride begins his e-mail with the word 'Gents' - the underlying misogyny of the rumours he was trying to spread is one of the most shocking aspects of the whole thing."

And the book whose launch McBride was attending that night? A minor work called Life Support by his good friend Derek Draper, the recipient of his emails, who has since defended them as mere "banter between blokes" and no more than "a bit juvenile and inappropriate... but ... brilliant and rather funny".

The blurb on the back of Life Support claims the stories within "will help you become a better you - because the more we understand why we do what we do, the more we can change ourselves for the better and enjoy the fuller, happier lives we deserve." Perfect reading for McBride, who has learnt today that he will receive no severance pay from Downing Street.